Freshly Waxed Moose
!]] Freshly Waxed Moose (FWM) was founded by Garth Cummings and Matthew Sutherland in the fall of 2008 as a video productions team for a video productions class. At the time, the group was known as Blue Moose. The name has obviously changed since those days. Members Core Members Matthew Sutherland - Co-founder, Former CEO (Demoted), and Grand Director Garth Cummings - Co-founder, Former Supreme Overlord (Demoted), and Loremaster Nick Cummings - Former Former Head of Auxiliary Moose Division (Twice Demoted) Josh Fitzgerald - Nick's Former Sidekick (Demoted) Freshly Waxed Collaborators Eric Durkopp Corey Benson Dan Smith Trevor Williams Colin Attwood Cody Brown Videos Pencil Tapping (2008) The Collision (2008) French Fashion (2008) Vandalism PSA (2008) Foreign Exchange Students (2008) Art Show (2009) MooseHeid (2009) A Day in the Life of Death (2009) Death Farm (2009) The Gremlin (2009) Bad Trip (2010) 86th Ave. Film Festival Commercial (2010) Star Movie (2010) Captain Bluetooth: The Music Pirate (2011) Steve and Kitty (2011) Beatnik Cafe (2012) Semi-final Cut of Final Scene from Upcoming Movie (2012) Rug Dealer (2012) Empire in Peril (2012) Epic Staring Contest (2012) The Briefcase (In post-production) The Wild Side (In pre-production) History Early History Garth Cummings and Matthew Sutherland both attended Governor John R. Rogers High School where they both signed up for a fifth period video productions class. Their instructor, DeWayne Crust, is credited with giving the filmmakers their foundation of knowledge in film. For the class, their first project was to find partners, create a name for their production company and create a logo. They began making films under the title of Blue Moose. Their first original film assignment was to create three silent films, all of which had to include a specific element and be 30 seconds long without dialogue. One video had to have pencil tapping, one video had to have toilet paper, and the third video had to have a collision. The final works were entitled Pencil Tapping, The Collision, and French Fashion. The next film project was to create a Public Service Announcement and they decided to create a Vandalism PSA. This video included a third group member and foreign exchange student Mari Kishimoto. The video was created with the help of Jerry Bergan, a public security officer. A project where an audio dub over a Looney Tunes Cartoon fostered the track entitled "Yo, Yo Dawgs" which was written and recorded by NIWFR. The track was laid over the video and the audio dub film was submitted for credit. The following assignment was to create a news story. Both Garth and Matthew had a distaste for this project and Matthew is quoted as saying that the resulting film was, "...our worst film ever." They created a news story on Foreign Exchange Students. It was criticized for poor sound, poor filming and an overall lack of any actual substance. The video also reached controversy as it depicted people as Foreign Exchange Students who were not, in fact, exchange students. This video was followed by the Art Show film. The group was requested to do a video on the 2008/2009 Art Show at Rogers High School and joined two classmates, known as The Heids, in order to do so. This temporary merger prompted Blue Moose to alter their name and the resulting group created this video under the title MooseHeid with a new logo to supplement the name change. The culminating project for the year was to attempt to make a full news broadcast, complete with news stories, PSAs and anchor shots. Two more group members were added for this film, Khrys Ross and Chris Cuddington who were the films anchors. The news broadcast was entitled MooseHeid and featured a theme song also entitled MooseHeid written by NIWFR. The video featured the Vandalism PSA, the Art Show, and the Foreign Exchange Student news story. After the main assignments were completed, Garth and Matthew set out to create some extra films. They first began writing A Day in the Life of Death, which starred Corey Benson as Jesus and Trevor Anderson as Death. This video had a script written by Matthew, but it ended up being half improvisation and ideas that occurred at the last moment. This was the first time that the group worked with Eric Durkopp. The project that has had the most effort put in was the Steve and Kitty project. Their first attempt at this film is only shown in one scene, the Bully Scene starring Chris Cuddington as Steve and Trevor Anderson as The Bully. Two other scenes were filmed, but the footage was lost. The film was vastly unfinished, and was abandoned for the time being. The final assignment of the year was to submit some videos to the 86th Ave. Film Festival. A category for submission was the 72 hour film contest. Matthew and Garth combined with multiple classmates, including Corey Benson, KJ Farris, Brittani Weeks, Shannon Zimmer, Eric Zils, Eric Durkopp, Michael Durkopp, Aaron Domney, and Levon Ethridge, to submit an entry. They were given 72 hours, from the time they were given the list of what the video had to include, to enter a video. Matthew had pre-written a horror style script that they began to work on entitled Death Farm. The name of this larger collaborative team was Drop D Moose. Durkopp Productions was also credited in the film. The video was not submitted on time, but the Durkopps finished editing and submitted a final copy for viewing pleasure. In the following school year, after assisting other groups with their videos and doing a couple Phast Fives, Matthew Sutherland and Garth Cummings combined with Dan Smith and Brian Wallinger to create The Gremlin in October 2009. With a deadline quickly approaching, the cartoon Gremlin was not actually finished. Instead, stick figure style legs and arms were added in order to produce the video faster. The video was submitted on time and was supposed to be aired on RamTV, but another student complained to the teacher, saying the video was insulting to people who know people who have seizures. Matthew is quoted as saying, "That is bogus. If you watch the video, the Gremlin is clearly attacking his victim and the saliva clearly puts his victim in a state of near paralysis. He isn't having a seizure, he is being overpowered by a Gremlin. This video should have been aired." This was the first video credited as being created by Freshly Waxed Moose, as Garth Cummings had recently realized that another company had copyrighted the name of Blue Moose, which had had the team's Myspace page deleted. After that project was completed, Dan Smith decided he wanted to do a film for a contest. After researching contests as a group they decided to do one for the You Are So Going to Hell contest. Several scripts were written by the team, and one was picked out, but not before the deadline was long past. So they moved on to another project. Freshly Waxed Moose decided to make a video for the Bad Trip contest instead. Eric Durkopp worked with the team for this video. The video wasn't completed in time to be submitted, but a censored version of it was aired on RamTV. The Bad Trip video was released with two versions, along with Bad Trip "DVD Extras" and deleted scenes. After the completion of Bad Trip, the script for McVasion was written and started. The concept was that Dan Smith's character wanted to invade McDonald's and enlisted his cohorts into doing so. Only one scene was filmed and was shown in a later video. DeWayne Crust requested Freshly Waxed Moose to make 86th Ave Film Festival Commercial. This video was promptly done and aired on RamTV. It showed snippets from a few earlier videos and the scene from McVasion. It also featured a portion from a re-recorded version of "Yo, Yo Dawgs". Between this point and the 86th Ave. Film Festival, Freshly Waxed Moose set out to create one more film entitled Star Movie. Star Movie was originally written by Eric Durkopp, but only two aspects from his original script remained: the name of Jerry Fielding and the title of the film. Everything else was made up on the spot or the day before. The video was supposed to be submitted into the 86th Ave. Film Festival, but human error by the students in charge resulted in it not being put on the appropriate disc. However, at the time, it was considered one of FWM's favorites and aired on RamTV. The RamTV version was censored. Officials higher up than DeWayne Crust decided that when the characters said "Uranus" it sounded too much like "your anus". In order to make it airable, FWM made an audio dub of a different pronunciation of Uranus and put it over the original cut. Although Star Movie was never officially submitted, FWM won Best Overall Video for the 86th Ave Film Festival Commercial and Best Comedy for Bad Trip. Dawn of Auxiliary Moose The following year, neither Matthew Sutherland nor Garth Cummings were in Video Productions. Garth Cummings graduated in 2010 and Matthew Sutherland did not have room in his schedule. This did not prevent videos from being made, however. Nick Cummings and Josh Fitzgerald worked together as a Freshly Waxed Moose subsidiary called Auxiliary Moose. The first film completed with Auxiliary Moose was "Captain Bluetooth - The Music Pirate." This film had two versions. One was edited by Nick Cummings for class and the other was edited by Matthew Sutherland and was called The Fresh Wax version. The video featured a track entitled "Llama Llama Llama Llama" written by The Frigid Ground. In the early months of 2011, FWM set out to reboot Steve and Kitty. Advertisements for auditions were sent out and put up around the school and auditions were held and judged by Garth Cummings, Justin Wiesness, Kylah Williams, Eric Durkopp and Matthew Sutherland. Because of an incident called the SD Card Debacle of 2011 Eric Durkopp's last association with Freshly Waxed Moose was this audition. After many discussions Alex Gallo was cast as Steve, Trevor Williams as Kitty, Raynee Morris as The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Alex Johnson as the Teacher, Shawn Ray as The Bully and James Polly and Joe Mendoza as extras. Garth Cummings, Nick Cummings and Josh Fitzgerald also appeared as cameos in the film. For the second time, FWM failed to complete the entire video. A total of four scenes were filmed, three edited and one went missing. the S&K Bloopers, Deleted Scenes and Outtakes and Stuff was released as well. After a hiatus where Matthew Sutherland was unavailable for three months, FWM, with Trevor Williams as a more permanent member, made the concept for three films and filmed two and a half of them in the late months of 2011. Rug Dealer was released on June 16th, 2012, and Empire in Peril was released on June 24, 2012. The Briefcase was half filmed in (late 2011 or early 2012?), but was completely reshot in the summer of 2012. It is currently in post-production. The Future The Wild Side is a film concept that was drawn up by Nick Cummings and Josh Fitzgerald. The film is currently in pre-production. The film is part of an ongoing series that will interconnect with a reboot of Star Movie and a second reboot of Steve and Kitty. Initially, it was planned to film this over the summer of 2012, but Nick suffered from a non-fatal leg injury while practicing his sweet dance moves. It has since been postponed, but pre-production continues, and the intention is to do it in the summer of 2013. Due to the delaying of The Wild Side, FWM began preproduction, and production, of several smaller projects, which have yet to be announced. During this period, the group woked with Cody Brown, who will be appearing in at least one upcoming unannounced film. In the fall of 2012, both Garth and Nick found themselves in classes that involve creative writing, to at least some degree. With any luck, this could help further the advancement of Freshly Waxed Moose. In October, 2012, Garth recruited fellow classmate Ruth Apahidean as a new Collaborator. However, due to circumstances outside of her control, she was forced to drop out of the team prior to completing any work. Category:Real World Articles